Association for Behavior Analysis International

Behavior analysis has much to offer in conceptualizing learning or how repertoires emerge from interactions with context. And yet, many of the most common conceptualizations of learning in the classroom and the clinic tend to be limited by mentalist constructs, cultural insensitivity, and disregard for the interlocking functional relations at play. This symposium will explore the effect of centering appetitive functional relations in behavioral conceptualizations of teaching and learning. The first paper will unpack the mentalist construct of fixed vs. growth mindset regarding learned repertoires and the contexts from which they emerge. The second paper will explore the effects of an All Appetitive All the Time approach to culturally sensitive teaching in the university classroom. The third paper will discuss an alternative to the traditional teacher’s stance, embracing the opportunity for teachers to be learners. The fourth paper will consider the therapist as the learner, and how therapists might resource themselves to best serve their clients. Discussion around fostering growth with breadth and flexibility will follow.

Board-certified behavior analytic professionals working in higher education.

Behavior analysis has focused on effective instructional design and classroom management when addressing the issues with pedagogy (De Souza & Crone-Todd, 2024; Vargas, 2013). From a behavior-analytic perspective, teaching involves the student as a learner, and the same principles used to produce behavior change are applicable in this context (Martens & Kelly, 1993). Every student encountering a learning context has a unique repertoire that likely requires idiosyncratic interventions to foster learning. Ideally, teachers organize the contingencies of the learning context to resource students toward their desired learning outcomes. However, the individual, group, and systemic conditions under which teachers operate create little room to nurture them as learners. An inability to learn from students results in an inability for teachers to meaningfully resource them. The current paper will offer a behavior-analytic conceptual analysis of the conditions under which teachers can be positioned to learn from their students and resource them meaningfully. The conceptualization will discuss the power disparity between teachers and students in a learning context and developing curiosity and humility as aspects of the teacher’s repertoire toward co-creating a socially valid learning context with students. Practical implications of such a perspective and barriers to implementing related practices will be discussed.

Both teaching and learning occur in the clinical space. Typically, we think of the clinician as the teacher and the client as the learner, wherein the clinician is a part of the appetitive learning context that fosters growth for the client. Ideally, both are true: the clinician and the client take turns playing the role of teacher and learner. From this perspective, the clinician is learning how to best serve the client. This is not necessarily the case under all conditions, however. Sometimes the conditions in the clinical space instead foster narrowness and rigidity on the part of the clinician, limiting the resources a clinician has access to in order to provide an appetitive learning environment for the client. The current presentation will explore the conditions under which the clinician is able to grow into what the client needs. It will also explore the skills involved in this learning and growth: tracking our own behavior and resourcing ourselves.